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Jun 15, 2012

Former SAG officer was Muammar Gaddafi’s bodyguard and gunrunner

Ousted Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi: “It was never true government troops were on a killing spree,” claims former bodyguard.

Karl Stagno-Navarra

A 38-year-old retired Maltese police officer who served within the Special Assignment Group, and moved on to work as a security contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, was hired as the chief security officer to the Gaddafi family throughout the Libyan [NATO-led] "revolution".

Tony Borg - a fictitious name to protect the man's identity who now works as a security contractor in Colombia - told MaltaToday he was exposed to Col. Muammar Gaddafi's inner core during the revolution when he was entrusted to protect family members of the Libyan leader, and also escort weapons to the frontlines defending the cities from rebel attacks.

Borg recounts how he was contracted for the job after meeting a Gaddafi family member's driver in Tunisia. "He took me to his boss who gave me the job, and I served him loyally," he said, adding that he started working just a week before protests started in Benghazi and in some suburbs of Tripoli in mid February last year.

Borg, clearly a supporter of his former employer, was highly critical of the international media and NATO for their role in "distorting truth and facts" about the situation.

"It was never true that government troops were on some kind of killing spree," he argued, going on to recount how he was exposed to phone calls in which Col. Gaddafi made it clear that he did not want anybody to shoot at or kill Libyans.

"This revolution was all about money," Borg said, as he accused the Benghazi-led National Transitional Council who started the revolution after their requests for money were turned down by Tripoli.

"They were greedy, and always wanted more, and when they could get no more, they instigated the people to revolt with the help of French, Qatari, British and American propaganda."

Revealing that Col. Gaddafi used to travel from place to place in an ordinary taxi while Nato planes flew overhead and dropped bombs over the country's infrastructure, Borg denounced what he claims was a massacre he witnessed on the outskirts of Benghazi, sometime in March last year, while he was escorting a cache of weapons to troops defending the oil-town of Brega.

"As soon as my convoy arrived, we were struck by a hell-storm of US cruise missiles that killed hundreds of Libyan soldiers," he said.

According to Borg, Col. Gaddafi's downfall was the result of a series of "betrayals" namely by his former foreign minister Musa Kusa, who defected to Britain and later to Qatar, and his former Prime Minister and oil minister Shokri Ghanem who defected to Italy and then to Vienna where he was found dead a month ago.

"These are the men who tainted the regime. They stole millions, and painted themselves as some immaculate components of a government they suddenly started to despise."

While explaining that he was regularly in the company of Seif al-Islam - the once heir apparent to the Gaddafi rule, now in captivity in Zintan and awaiting trial by the NTC - Borg says that he was disgusted with the NTC's brutal "murder" of Col. Gaddafi.

"I call it murder because the NTC had the moral obligation of ensuring a fair trial, and upholding their cause for democracy in Libya. With the way they killed Gaddafi, the NTC can never claim to be either democratic or legitimate," he claimed.

Borg concluded that Col. Gaddafi wanted to die in Sirte, known to be his birthplace.

"I heard him with my own ears. When they used to tell him to take cover or to flee to another country, he always said that he will never leave Libya, and would rather die in Sirte, like a real Libyan would do."

Tony Borg's contract in Libya expired after he safely escorted the Gaddafi family members across the border into Algeria.